Grapes Two Ways: Oven Roasted Chicken with Grapes and Shallots, Paired with Grenache Blancs

By Suphada Rom

Walking through the cellar a couple of weeks ago, I was engulfed by the raw sensations of the place. The sweet yet pungent aroma of fermenting grapes. The music blasting out from the high positioned speakers, reverberating off the large tanks and walls. The complex dance of forklifts moving grapes in, must out, and bins to be cleaned. The intense focus of the cellar team, going about their individual tasks.  It's one moment in time, but critical to everything we do the rest of the year.

In celebration of harvest, I decided to incorporate grapes into my next food and wine pairing. After a few relatively easy recipes, I decided to step up my game a little bit and focus on a more complex dish, including sides and sauces. I chose an Oven Roasted Chicken with Grapes recipe from Bon Appetit. The chicken is lightly dusted with Chinese Five Spice, a mix of Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and fennel whose subtle warmth and pepper quality I love. Another thing I love about this dish is that everything is prepared in one pan (I chose a cast iron skillet). Deglazing this pan and liberating all the drippings from the chicken and caramelized shallots is amazing. For the sides and sauces, I got a little creative: an avocado mousse and lemon sabayon. Here are some photos of the process:

A one pan wonder

Oven Roasted Chicken, Avocado Mousse, and Lemon Sabayon- paired with our 2015 Patelin de Tablas Blanc

An additional wine! Our 2015 Grenache Blanc

This dish had quite a few elements, with contrasting textures, degrees of crunch and acidity. And the pairings really worked. For my first bite, I was adamant about tasting everything together (you can imagine that this was a bit of a challenge, since grapes are not entirely conducive to cutting!) and I was rewarded with the gentle spice of the crispy skinned chicken mellowed out by the creamy avocado mousse. The lemon sabayon was light and airy, reeling in all the qualities of fresh squeezed lemon, without the astringency lemon can sometimes provide. In the form of sabayon, the lemon is set somewhere between a sauce and custard, with creaminess as well as brightness. All together, it harmonized marvelously, like a well practiced barbershop quartet: acidity, textures, richness, and flavors. 

One component of the dish that I was particularly fond of was the lemon sabayon. The peculiar thing about the lemon sabayon is the presentation of acidity. It's almost as if the acid and citrus notes are the backdrop to the concoction's amazing texture. It's sort of like a leaner and lighter Hollandaise sauce. The avocado mousse was just as simple as it sounds, which was important because when you've got a couple of high-volume elements (i.e; spice on the chicken and lemon sabayon), you've got to have something that can compliment the dish without creating cacophony. That extra bit of color on the plate is nice, too!

The dish's combination of richness and brightness makes it a natural pairing for Grenache Blanc, which we often describe in those same terms.  For us, this means our the 2015 Grenache Blanc, and I decided to see how it worked with the 2015 Patelin de Tablas Blanc (56% Grenache Blanc, 23% Viognier, 12%Roussanne, 9% Marsanne) too. All in the name of "research", of course. Both wines are from the incredibly low yielding 2015 vintage. Wines from this vintage are aromatically appealing, with what I like to call "definites". When I delve into wines from this vintage, if I smell or taste something, there is no doubt in my mind that that fruit, spice, or earth flavor exists. For the Patelin de Tablas Blanc, on the nose, there is freshly exposed lemon pith teamed up with a racy expression of lemongrass. The wine is mouthwatering and juicy, with notes of tart green apple and pink grapefruit. A certain sea salt quality keeps the salivary glands going, and keeps me wanting another sip. The varietal Grenache Blanc smells, tastes, and looks somewhat different. There's green apple there too, but it's like a slice of an apple dunked into a bowl of warm caramel. There's also a great deal of citrus, but richer flavors of the pith of limes and oranges rather than lemon. On the palate, it's not as tart as the Patelin de Tablas Blanc and in fact, it's got more of that sneaky acidity quality, more so than the vibrant and obvious kind. There is an added layer of creaminess that I would attribute to the proportion of the wine that saw neutral oak barrel time. 

In terms of the pairing, I thought both wines went extremely well with the dish. Honestly, it was kind of a toss up between the two wines and you can guess why based on the descriptions. The wines worked well with the spice on the chicken: Chinese five spice is just forward enough to showcase the subtle spiciness of the wine, without dominating. The not-overbearing citrus quality of the sabayon teamed up with the racy acidity of the wines for a lovely balance of like flavors. 

This was a technical -- but fun -- recipe to produce and all grapes aside, a delicious one to taste. If you recreate this dish (or create a TCV wine and food pairing of your own!), be sure to let us know on any of our social media handles - Facebook or Twitter or Instagram - or just leave us a comment here! When you do, tag @tablascreek and use #EatDrinkTablas

A few resources:

• Recipe for Oven Roasted Chicken with Grapes can be found here, via Bon Appetit.
• Recipes for Lemon Sabayon found here (original recipe with asparagus and prosciutto) and Avocado Mousse found here.
• You can purchase the 2015 Patelin de Tablas Blanc and 2015 Grenache Blanc by clicking here or by visiting us in the tasting room.
• Not local? Good News! Our Patelins can be found throughout the country! Check out the distributors we work with here.
• Be sure to check out this post, "Grenache Blanc's Moment in the Sun" written by General Manager & Partner Jason Haas on the recent rise of Grenache Blanc.